Google has terminated 28 employees after they staged a sit-in protest against the tech giant’s $1.2bn contract to provide cloud computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government.
The group, known as No Tech for Apartheid, occupied Google offices in California and New York on Tuesday, which led to police arresting some employees in the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
Google deemed the protest as a “clear violation” of its policies and “completely unacceptable behaviour”. A spokesperson for the company said that “after refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety”.
Google denied that the contract was related to weapons or intelligence services. CEO Sundar Pichai issued a warning to employees, stating that “This is a business and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics”.
No Tech for Apartheid accused Google of retaliation and said that those fired included staff who had not directly participated in the protests.
They also denied the company’s claims that protesters defaced property and physically impeded other employees’ work.
